


We Didn't Die.  Let's Eat.

by Arsenic



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Family Issues, Hanukkah, Judaism, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, M/M, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28120653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Hanukah's not that important, but Dorian appreciates Bull making it special, all the same.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 57
Kudos: 73
Collections: Adoribull Holiday Gift Exchange 2020!





	We Didn't Die.  Let's Eat.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halwardpavushatersclub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halwardpavushatersclub/gifts).



> Hi Marcus. I have a story to tell you. When we were picking out prompts, I saw yours and I was like "Jewish!Dorian celebrates Hanukah! I can do that!"
> 
> I wasn't exactly WRONG. It just turns out that I can't do it without SO MUCH of my frustration with how Hanukah plays out in American culture bleeding into things. For this, I apologize. And I hope you enjoy the fic anyway. 
> 
> Thanks to Muchy for setting up the exchange!

“Listen, I know you hate Christmas—”

“I don’t hate Christmas,” Dorian interrupted.

Krem looked at Dorian the way he looked at Sera when she protested being tired while actively yawning. Dorian pushed down his own seething annoyance, because he could actually understand where the misconception came from. “I _don’t_ hate Christmas. I don’t even particularly dislike it in the way I sense most secular or lapsed Christian persons do. I _hate_ that my complete lack of interest in the holiday, which I don’t celebrate, because it is not, actually, a secular holiday, and my dismissiveness about Hanukah, which simply isn’t that important within the Jewish calendar year, is presumed to be hatred, because heaven fucking forfend someone just not be a default-Christmas-celebrant in this backwater country.”

“Feel better?” Krem asked. “You were born in Massachusetts, you’re a citizen of this country.”

“Fuck right off, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure, right after I ask if you’d be willing to participate in the office’s totally-secular-except-for-how-it’s-all-going-under-a-wintergreen-tree-not-Secret-Santa.”

“It’s almost hard to comprehend why a person who doesn’t engage in the so-called ‘holidays’ as branded by those who celebrate them and instead has their religion tokenized by everyone at this time of year would feel frustrated, isn’t it?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you they put several stars of David on the tree, should I?”

Dorian closed his eyes for a second. “How likely is not participating to be considered bad sportsmanship?”

“Eh, less than punching a coworker in the face, more than just buying someone a $15 gift card, you know?” Krem’s tone was casual, but his eyes were sympathetic. Their relationship hadn’t always been friendly, with Dorian still exuding the upper-class manners of his wealthy Brookline upbringing, while Krem had mostly softened the edges of his Allston accent, but it rose to the fore now and then.

Dorian smiled as insincerely as he could manage—he had it on good authority his insincerity game was very strong. “In that case, count me in.”

* * *

After work, Dorian made his way to the mixed martial arts club Krem had introduced him to. It was run by a lesbian who unironically went by the name of Skinner and her wife, Dalish, which was evidently some kind of family name. Krem had served with the women, and a number of others who came in to use the place regularly. 

Dorian couldn’t decide if he was happy to see Bull arriving at the same time as him or not. On the one hand, he wanted to spar until he could barely walk out the door, and Bull would definitely give him the challenge he needed. On the other hand, his crush on Krem’s old captain was getting a little out of hand, and needed to be nipped harshly in the bud. Something that wasn’t going to happen when the man was finding ways to pin Dorian despite having no depth perception in the wake of losing an eye in action.

Dorian wasn’t really one for New Year’s resolutions. It seemed, however, like dealing with his emotions about Bull was probably a good one. He’d let it ride for the rest of the year, when he was wound up anyway, and then, when things settled he’d get his head back on straight and remember that, among other things, non-Jews were always fine with practicing Jews until they started dating them. As Dorian had discovered time and again. And again. 

Bull saw him and grinned. “Rematch?”

Dorian shrugged. “Your dignity to do with as you please, I suppose.”

An hour later, when Dorian’s bruises had bruises but he’d managed to only get pinned once, and had Bull showing signs of fatigue, they caught each other’s gaze and called it with a tilt of their heads toward where their towels and water bottles were waiting for them.

After a few long pulls from his water, Bull asked quietly, “Better?”

“I—” Dorian halted in his denial at a Look from Bull and said, “yes, thank you.”

Bull nodded. “Work?”

“Oh. No, not really. Just me getting upset about things I know better than to be bothered by.”

Bull ran a hand over his bald head. Dorian did not watch the play of his forearm muscles. Or miss the fact that Bull asked, “Have you eaten?”

Okay, maybe that last. Since he had to say, “Hm?”

“Eaten? There’s a Tibetan place on the next block I like.”

“Mama Momo’s? I could live off their thukpa.”

“Dinner?”

Dorian’s stomach chose that moment to rumble, so he laughed. “I’m going to hit the showers first. Meet you in half an hour?”

“Takes me about fifteen, pretty boy. I’ll get us a table.”

“Order me a cinnamon lassi while you’re at it,” Dorian told him, and made sure to put just a slight extra swish in his step walking away. He had nearly a month before New Year.

* * *

When Dorian arrived, wet hair pulled into a messy bun, but makeup applied pristinely, Bull was holding a cup of tea. Or at least Dorian assumed so, since Bull’s hands were both the size of a frying pan and he couldn’t actually see the cup. It seemed unlikely, though, that steam had started rising up from the man’s palms, no matter his metaphorical level of hotness. 

Dorian sat down and took a sip of his lassi. “I’m fairly certain they’re putting crack in these.”

“Nah, only the highest-grade cocaine.”

Dorian just managed to swallow instead of doing a spit take. Once he was sure he wasn’t going to cough he asked, “You’re an expert in the difference?”

“Ah, well, without going into the classified details, I served in Guatemala engaging cartels in the early twenty-tens. Not an expert, but I learned my way around.”

“That where Krem learned Spanish?”

“He started picking it up there. He minored in it when he did undergrad on the GI bill after serving. He’s pretty fluent in Pashto, too. He’s just good at languages.”

“You speak Pashto?”

Bull shook his head. “Nah, not any more than to get along. Buy things at a store, find a bathroom or a restaurant, that sort of thing.”

“Spanish?”

“Sure, but I grew up speaking it. Mom was first gen Cuban-American. Escaped Castro just to marry my dad and get sucked into _his_ cult.”

Dorian did choke at that. He put his napkin to his lips and said, “Sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, no. I don’t bring it up much, but I was raised in Scientology. Ran away to the Marines in the dead of night three days after I turned eighteen.”

Dorian smiled sadly. “When Krem said you guys where his family, I didn’t realize he meant it quite so literally. I’m sorry. That must have been—well. I know how it feels to have to leave family behind because your existence and their system of belief doesn’t mesh. I wouldn’t have wished it on a friend.”

“A worst enemy?”

“Sure. Why? Did I give the impression I was nice?”

Bull laughed and poured himself another cup of tea. “No, worry not, never that.”

* * *

Half-way through their entrees, with a shared plate of goat momo for good measure, Bull asked, “So what is it that’s bothering that shouldn’t be bothering you?”

Dorian continued to neatly thread a thick noodle onto his chopsticks. “Oh, it really is nothing. I got drafted into the office’s not-secret santa. I’m just being grinchy.”

“Ah. Yeah, this time of year is kind of a lot if you don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Dorian nodded. “It’s that. It’s also that because the media equates being Jewish with celebrating Hanukah, everybody asks about Hanukah like it’s some big thing, when really, the hardest parts about Hanukah are finding somewhere with good jelly donuts in this city, not burning myself frying the latkes, and remembering to add ya’aleh b’ya’avo in the musaf if I manage to get myself to shul on shabbat during it. And for the last three years, I haven’t even bothered to fry the latkes, I’ve just popped them in the waffle maker like the heathen abomination I am.” Dorian chewed the noodle with more force than probably necessary. “But two months earlier, when I’m run ragged with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah, people act like I’m skipping days of work for a spot of vacay.”

“Firecracker,” Bull said.

Dorian sighed. “Yeah, I know, I get a little—”

“No, I meant, Firecracker, the donut shop. They do excellent jelly donuts.”

“Oh.” Dorian blinked. “Uh, thanks, I’ll look into that.”

“I like your fire just fine,” Bull said.

It took Dorian a breath to process that. It took another breath to be certain he wouldn’t stutter. “Well, you like things spicy,” he said, motioning to the yak curry Bull had made certain to communicate he wanted a non-Americanized level of heat put into.

Bull laughed at that, and Dorian tried to look away from the deep laugh lines at the corner of his uncovered eye. He failed. Instead, pretending like he was a civilized person having a conversation with his dinner companion, he asked, “You just don’t celebrate, then? Christmas?”

“Not really. Stitches, from the unit? He and his wife Valta generally host both sets of parents through the holidays and have a big brunch the day of. Everyone from our group’s invited, and like half the University of Chicago, where Valta teaches. Those of us who are around and don’t have our own family stuff to be at are regulars. Stitches’ mom was raised in London and makes a sticky toffee pudding that I could actually live on, so I make sure to be there. That’s about the extent of my calendared festivities.”

“I can respect that. Sticky toffee pudding. Hard to argue with.”

“So’s Stitches’ mom. In general.”

Dorian barked out a laugh, both at the unexpected comment, and the way Bull waggled his eyebrows completely inappropriately. “Have a thing for older women, do you?”

“I have a thing for people who know who they are,” Bull said, keeping his gaze directly on Dorian.

Dorian pretended he had wholly intended to drop the momo he’d just picked up from dish into the puddle of sauce he had on his dipping plate, and cause it to splash everywhere. Totally what he meant to do.

* * *

Dorian got a bit buried in the project he was doing at work after that. Dagna, who’d been one of his first friends in Chicago, and was a good chunk of the reason he’d chosen his synagogue, assured him that a gift card to Etsy would please anyone, and once he’d set aside his gift-exchange woes, he disappeared into the lab trying to figure out why the tints he’d been manufacturing simply weren’t layering correctly when actually used as eye shadow on any of the company’s testers. 

The afternoon of the first night of Hanukah, Dorian had planned to leave work early because he needed to hit the grocery store and wanted to get in some time at the club. He stopped by Krem’s desk on the way out to see if he wanted to join for the club part, only to find the other guy sleeping at his desk. Dorian stood there debating with himself for a few minutes before saying, “Krem.” And then, a bit more loudly, “Krem.”

Dorian was glad he’d stood back when Krem startled awake into a ready stance. He waited until it was clear Krem had realized where he was and asked, “When was the last time you went home for more than a shower and a change of clothes?”

Krem shrugged. He worked supply lines, so the holidays were a pretty intense time for him. Dorian tried, “When was the last time you had food that didn’t come from the vending machine?”

Krem looked as though he was actually trying to puzzle that one out. Dorian said, “Yeah, come on. It’s Hanukah. I’m making lazy-person latkes, have a dozen jelly donuts I do not need to eat on my own, and some serious dreidl skills that I need other people to appreciate. I’ll even text Bull and get him to come so that if you want to get shitfaced on the bottle of slivovitz my rabbi gave me for the holiday, we can get you home safely.”

“The fuck is slivovitz?”

“Prune brandy. You haven’t lived until you’re dying from a hangover from it.”

Krem seemed a bit doubtful of this. All he asked though, was, “Don’t you have people you’re celebrating with? You had to turn down like four invites from people at your synagogue last Passover because there were only so many events.”

“I have two Hanukah parties this weekend. It’s eight nights and we can’t be bothered to get het up about all of them, mostly because they’re just not that important. It’d be kinda nice, though, not to do the first night alone. And here you are, looking like death warmed over. Works out.”

“And you want Bull to be my DD.” Krem’s voice was suspiciously flat when he said this.

Dorian turned around, already beginning to text Bull. “That is what I want.”

“Mm,” Krem grunted. After a moment though, Dorian heard him grab his satchel and follow Dorian to the elevator.

* * *

Dorian grabbed Krem a can of Revolution Mineshaft Gap and changed into some sweats that hung low on his hips with a white tee that didn’t leave too much to the imagination, and tied his hair back messily. Then he went to the kitchen and pulled out his food processor and waffle maker. He scrubbed the golden potatoes he’d bought the day before and peeled a couple of vidalias before running both through the shredder function of the processor.

By this time, Krem had taken his shoes off and shuffled over to Dorian’s peninsula to watch while sipping his beer. “Need help?”

“Not really, it’s mostly muscle memory at this point.” He poured the shredded potato-onion mixture into a bowl and cracked an egg into it, tossed a handful of matzo meal in, some kosher salt, ground some pepper over it all, shook in a couple rounds of garlic powder and a dash of cumin and spicy paprika, and then mixed it altogether.

There was a knock on the door and Dorian asked, “You mind?”

Krem was already headed there, unlocking it and opening it for Bull, who stepped in and held up a Mason jar. “Brought applesauce from last week’s Farmer’s Market.”

Dorian smiled, too charmed to do anything else. “Excellent, have a seat. Something to drink?”

“Cup of coffee?”

“Regular?”

“Yup.”

Dorian walked over to his drip coffee maker and put a pot on. He went back to the bowl, stretched a length of cheesecloth over it, and cut it to the appropriate size. Then he carefully stretched the cloth and anchored it with his hands, turning the bowl over so that the mixture was on the cloth. Setting aside the bowl, he twisted the edges of the cloth together and strained the mixture over the sink.

Krem and Bull were talking about what to bring for Christmas brunch. Dorian could feel Bull’s eyes on his hands. He allowed himself a small smile. 

Once the excess liquid was out, Dorian spread the first cup of the mix over the surface of the now-heated waffle-maker and closed it, setting his phone timer for five minutes. He poured Bull a mug off coffee, asking, “Cream or sugar?”

“Half ‘n half?”

Dorian pulled the carton from the fridge and gave it to him, then got himself some water. He putzed around getting the candles set up in the hanukkiah on his living room windowsill. It was already heading toward darkness. 

Bull came over and asked, “Manage to get the donuts?”

“Do I seem like an amateur to you?” Dorian responded. 

Bull smiled over the rim of his cup. “Hardly.”

Dorian favored him with an appreciative glance before going to take the first latke off and set it in the oven on low while placing the next one in the waffle maker. “I’m going to light and say prayers, should be about another twenty minutes before these are all done. There’s pastrami in the fridge for latke sandwiches, or you can just go full bore carb. I make no judgements either way.”

Bull, still over by the hanukkiah, asked, “Will it bother you if I watch?”

“No, but I can’t sing on key to save my life, you’ve been warned.”

“So there _is_ something you’re not good at,” Krem said, walking over.

Dorian rolled his eyes and lit a match, touching it to the shamash candle’s wick and waiting for the flame to catch. Once it had, he blew the match out and went to go set it in the sink. He came back and used the shamash to light the single candle while chanting out the two nightly prayers and adding a shehechyanu for the first night.

That done, he switched out another latke, and pulled the pastrami out of the fridge along with some dark mustard. He grabbed three of his fleishech dishes, set them out in a row, and grabbed the corresponding forks as well as a pile of napkins.

He took the first two waffle latkes out and fourthed them so that there were eight latke-sized pieces, then pulled the third one off the maker and did the same thing, putting the final batch on the waffle maker. Then, twelve latkes available, he held out two forks, one to Bull and one to Krem and said, “Betayavon.”

* * *

“Hypothetically, if I married you, would I inherit this recipe?” Krem asked, pointing down at his third latke.

“Hypothetically,” Dorian said, “the recipe is pretty easily searchable on the interwebs, and non-hypothetically, I don’t date straight men.”

“Also non-hypothetically,” Bull chimed in, “get your own nice Jewish boy to flirt with if you’ve decided to swing that way.”

Dorian blinked. Bull’s grin was half-cocky, half-sheepish. Dorian wasn’t even certain how that was possible, let alone hotter than the earth’s core. A second too late he managed, “There’s really nothing nice about me.”

He stood to take the plates to the sink, settling Bull’s coffee cup in the small dishwasher he only used for milchik plates, and placing the rest in the sink. Then he grabbed the family-sized pack of M&M’s, three teacup saucers, and the plastic dreidl he’d swiped from the synagogue at the previous year’s Hanukah party. “Ready to know defeat?”

Krem snorted. Bull asked, “Do I get a consolation prize?”

Krem snorted again for emphasis and said, “I need another beer for this.”

* * *

Bull had impressive fine motor skills for someone who could probably lift small cars on his own, but Dorian had the advantage of years of Hanukah parties and the desire to be a flashy little shit since well before his bar mitzvah. Krem was probably better than he was letting on, but was too busy eating the M&Ms that were the stakes in the game and watching Bull and Dorian like some kind of reality television show to bother.

Dorian took his turn, flipping the top so that it spun upside-down and whistled the first verse of ‘sevivon, sov sov’ before it fell on the hei. He spooned half of the “pot” into his cup and handed the dreidl to Bull. Bull kissed the tips of Dorian’s fingers before taking it. “For luck.”

“I should be filming this,” Krem said, thoughtfully.

Bull’s spin landed on shin. Dorian raised an eyebrow. “It appears I’m bad luck.”

Bull grabbed Krem’s cup and tilted some of his M&M’s into the center bowl. Krem squawked in outrage. Bull said, “Only if one doesn’t know how to think outside the box.”

* * *

They ate the sufganiyot with big glasses of milk. Well, Krem and Bull did. Dorian poured himself a finger of slivovitz and sipped it. Krem took a sniff and said, “Christ,” giving him back the glass and returning to his milk. 

Dorian shared a bag of gelt. Krem took a bite and said, with the due consideration of someone who, after his third beer in two hours, was not drunk, but was not entirely sober, “That is truly terrible chocolate.”

“It’s not true gelt if it’s not fifty percent wax,” Dorian informed him. Krem took another.

Bull tried to help clean up, but Dorian pushed him away with a, “No, seriously, you’ll treyf something. I appreciate it, but let me handle this, please.”

Dorian slid their M&M earnings into plastic baggies, along with a bag of gelt for each of them. Krem said, “Oh look, he gave us the chocolate made from failed crayons and evil.”

Laughing, Dorian rolled his eyes and pushed Krem out the door. Bull lingered for a moment. He smiled, looking up at the ceiling. “You know, all else aside, mistletoe is a very helpful thing.”

“Only for people who don’t have the guts to just kiss a guy they like,” Dorian said, going up to his toes to do just that. 

“Yeah, okay,” Bull said into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Dorian’s waist.

Dorian couldn’t have said how long it was before Krem called back, “Should I just sleep in the car?”

Bull pulled away momentarily to yell, “Works for me,” and went back to melting Dorian’s spine by way of his lips.

* * *

Bull did end up pulling away after a bit and saying, “Probably should get Krem home. It’s 13 degrees out there without the windchill.”

Dorian pouted about everything in that sentence. “Don’t remind me.”

“You grew up in _Boston_.”

“My mother was from Florida, it’s genetic.”

“Pretty certain that’s not how it works.”

“Oh, is this an area of expertise for you?”

Bull seemed to consider responding to that for roughly ten seconds, then turned and walked out the door. He stopped and asked, “Am I invited back for another night?”

“Second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth are free.”

“I’ve got a thing with the kid I mentor tomorrow night. See you in a couple evenings.”

“You’re bringing me more donuts,” Dorian called as Bull moved down the hall.

* * *

If Dorian took slightly longer than usual on his hair and makeup after getting home from the office on the second day heading into the third evening of Hanukah, that was between him and his mirror. He turned the heat up a bit and put on a tank that showed off a goodly bit of skin.

Then he made sweet potato and carrot latkes with a fair amount of spice, and reheated the harissa lamb meatballs he’d cooked the night before in a sauté pan. He was setting out plates when there was a knock at the door.

Dorian opened it, something snappy on his tongue, only to lose whatever it was at the visual of Bull standing there with a box wrapped in classy blue paper and a rather extensive amount of gold ribbon. After gaping for longer than was attractive, he managed, “I said donuts, not presents.”

Bull shrugged. “Presents aren’t _forbidden_ on Hanukah, they’re just not traditional. I know, I interneted and read things. Are you going to let me in?”

Dorian stepped back and Bull ducked in the door. “Smells amazing.”

Dorian did his best to preen at the compliment, but he was a little thrown. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t celebrate a holiday that involves presents, and my birthday isn’t until April, so I can’t imagine why you would have.”

A few years after he’d come out to his parents and been disowned holiday-by-holiday, choice-by-choice, as it became clear he had no intention of walking back into the closet, Dorian had pulled his shit together, and gone to therapy. He knew he wasn’t exactly a bastion of mental health these days, but relative to his mid- and late-twenties, he sort of was. In this case, that meant he knew he was made uncomfortable by the perceived imbalance of Bull giving him something without him reciprocating. Much of how he’d maintained relationships post-coming out was through making himself the more necessary element in any exchange. 

Growing up, he hadn’t recognized the kind of calculus that often went into friendships, let alone something more, because in his community, the equation of Us versus Them that made the community so insular also made it intensely supportive. So long as Dorian had played by the rules, had been one of them, he had never doubted that there was anything he could ask of someone else in the community. Nor had he thought anything of going out of his way to help others, close or otherwise. 

Thankfully, he’d been able to get a better scholarship offer from Lake Forest than Brandeis, or any of the other East Coast schools, where he’d already have been known either by the kids he’d gone to day school with, or the kids he’d met regionally through NCSY. It had allowed him time to time separate Judaism from G-d and vice versa, a chance to meet a rabbi who looked at him and saw someone who added to the community, rather than shaming it, given him four years to figure out that lying about who he was indefinitely was unsustainable, and to come up with a plan. Not to mention, make friends in the Chicago area who had helped him settle after college so that he wouldn’t need to go to the local Orthodox community for assistance, would instead be able to find a synagogue that fit his needs. 

He realized he’d been silent too long when Bull said, “Hey. You don’t have to open it, okay?”

Dorian shook himself, a full body shake, and said, “Sorry, no. I—you have stuff, about being cut off from your family that fucks you up, right? Even if you know it was right, that what they believed wasn’t what you believed and that you weren’t capable of believing it and leaving was the only real option, no matter how terrifying?”

“Uh, you could say that. My inability to unquestioningly follow authority almost got me kicked out of the service six times in my first year.”

“If I just said that one of those traps kind of got sprung in my head, would you be okay with letting it go?”

Bull smiled, off-kilter but warm. “Sure. Of course.”

Dorian lit the candles, then they sat down and ate dinner, sharing the bottle of Shiraz Dorian had opened for the occasion. He recounted how many times at winter Shabbatons, the boys would find ways to sneak away with girls and play spin-the-dreidl the way middle-schoolers played spin-the-bottle. “Pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who cemented their belief that girls were fine for _other_ people playing those games.”

Bull in turn related a story about the first time he’d babysat for Stitches’ and Valta’s kids and almost lost his other eye. He affected exasperation. “I’m not even _bad_ with kids, I’m usually awesome with them, but those two are part eel, I would swear an affidavit on it.”

Dorian laughed. Bull was watching his mouth. Dorian grabbed the dreidl from where it was still sitting on the edge of the table and spun it so it landed pointing at Bull. “Huh. Guess we have to kiss now.”

“Nothing for it,” Bull agreed, and reached out, pulling a still-laughing Dorian onto his lap.

* * *

Dorian felt Bull tense beneath him after a bit and pulled back to ask, “All right?”

Bull ran his hand up and down along the length of Dorian’s spine. “Mind if we move this to the couch? I caught some shrapnel in my left leg about ten years back and it can get kind of achy at times.”

Dorian frowned. “Yeah, of course. You—” He stood up. “Go get on the couch, I’ll be right back.”

Dorian half-listened to Bull moving while he took out one of the lavender rice bags he kept in his freezer. He moved back into the living room, noticing where the corner of Bull’s shirt had ridden up, revealing a nice swath of dark, smooth skin. Handing the bag to Bull, he said, “That should help.”

Bull wrapped the bag below his knee and then made grabby hands. “Come back here.”

Dorian tucked himself against Bull without putting any weight on the other man’s knee, and mentally congratulated himself for getting an extremely deep couch. “What’s the likelihood I get you take your shirt off?”

“I’m open to a fair trade.”

Dorian had his shirt off and thrown across the room so fast, Bull asked, “Was that magic?”

“Trade,” Dorian insisted.

Bull chuckled, and pulled his shirt off, before bending over to lick a strip from Dorian’s navel to his Adam’s apple. Against the skin of Dorian’s throat, Bull murmured, “I want to taste every inch of your skin.”

Dorian, who was not inexperienced in bed, thank you very much, lost every thought he’d ever had, every word he’d ever learned. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh? Or, not feeling it, oh?”

“Please. Please do that. Oh.”

Bull cackled, lips still on Dorian’s throat.

* * *

Over sufganiyot and milk, both of them down to nothing but their briefs, Dorian asked, “Do you think this is a first, second, or third date?”

“What happens if it’s our third? Asking for a friend.”

“Know why I bought this place?”

“Ah.” Bull tilted his head at the non-sequitur. “Good access to public transportation, pretty close to your office, has some really nice wood floors? Pretty roomy, too, for this area. Windows look newer, always a plus.”

“Well, yes, all of that, because I am an adult. But the thing this place has that I searched up and down for is a soaking tub.”

“A soaking tub.”

“Know what releases an old injury real nicely?”

“Contextually, I’m going to guess a hot bath. Which I probably only get if we are on our third date, correct?”

“A boy has to have standards.”

“I don’t know how this could really be anything other than a third date. I mean, we had a chaperone on our last date.”

“I see your logic. Wanna share a bath?”

“Do you have bubbles?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Bull choked on his donut.

* * *

“You do that much longer,” Dorian mumbled, “an’ I’m gonna fall asleep an’ drown in my own bathtub an’ then where will you be?”

Bull did not stop massaging Dorian’s scalp. “Something tells me I can manage to avert that crisis, seeing as how I’m holding you up. Can I wash your hair?”

Dorian opened one eye to peer at him suspiciously. “When was the last time you washed hair?”

Bull laughed. “It’s not that complicated. Even the follically impaired can figure it out, promise.”

Dorian huffed. “I suppose.”

Familiar with haircare or no, Bull knew how to use the breadth of his hands to cover Dorian’s scalp, working the shampoo in and lighting up his pleasure receptors. Even the rinsing portion involved an enormous amount of touch. Bull teased the conditioner through the length of Dorian’s hair.

“Bull,” Dorian said.

“Dorian.”

“Thanks for…” Dorian tried to find the words. “Not needing me to be someone else, right now.”

“You don’t seem to need me to be anyone else.” Bull worked water through his hair again, detangling strands as he went.

Dorian kept his eyes closed as the water poured over him. “It’s more that with Judaism, it’s fine for most people until I’m not the kind of Jew they think I should be. On both sides. It’s hard to explain.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

Dorian gasped out a laugh. Bull pulled him up a bit, settling him so they could face each other. “Tell me something: the first time you saw me, what did you think?”

“I’m assuming you mean my acceptable and non-sexual harassment related thoughts?”

“Well, let’s get back to those later, shall we?”

Dorian laughed. “Raincheck, sure. Uh, once I stopped having those thoughts? I remember liking your laugh. That was one of my first thoughts about you as, you know, you. And not just someone I really wanted to bang. Because muscles.”

Bull laughed, and Dorian found he liked the sound even more with Bull naked beneath him. Bull said, “My point is, I know a little something about expectations from both sides. When people who look like you look at me, generally, my muscles are not the first thing they see and my laugh is not the first thing they remember. They see my skin color and my size and nothing else. I’m neither entirely Black, nor entirely Cuban American. And neither of those communities has any idea what to do with my upbringing in Scientology. I’m never quite what anybody expects, and often not entirely what they want.”

Dorian kissed Bull’s shoulder. “Two square pegs, huh?”

“I dunno, I can be a round hole when I so choose.”

Dorian snorted right against his skin. “Yeah, shoulda seen that coming.”

“Know what my first thought was about you? Well, after the, ‘I want to pin him to the ground and lick every inch of him’ part of the proceedings?”

“Christ.”

“That’s a guy who’s had to fight too often to know when he should stop, sometimes.”

“You’re annoyingly perceptive.”

“But you’re gonna let me pin you down and lick you all over anyway, yeah?”

“Occasionally, very occasionally, I know how to give in gracefully.

* * *

While drying off, Dorian said, “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” Bull agreed. “Want me to get out of your hair?”

“I—you probably wish to go home. Sleep in your bed. School day and all that.”

“Dorian.”

“Or you could sleep in my bed. With me.”

“We’re talking about actual sleep, right?” Bull asked gently.

“I am.”

“Is that something you like?”

“It’s something I’d like with you.”

Bull smiled, an impossibly warm expression. “So, lemme see here, my options are, get in a warm bed with a smoking hot guy and get a good night’s sleep, or drag my ass out into the negative windchill and drive home to my apartment, where I have to turn up the heat and my bed is empty?”

“I’m sure I could come up with a third, but I’m kind of sleepy.” Dorian blinked slowly.

Quicker than Dorian could really clock, Bull swooped down and picked him up in a bridal hold. Dorian said, “Not so sleepy my legs don’t work.”

“You sure?” Bull asked, while moving toward the bedroom.

Dorian tilted his head. “Hm. I suppose there is something to staying on the safe side.”

* * *

Dorian woke to his alarm, like every weekday. Unlike every weekday, he had a warm bed of muscle beneath him and could smell coffee percolating. He just barely managed to bite back a, “marry me.” He had some self-control. 

Instead he kissed his way along a rather vicious scar on Bull’s right pec and murmured, “I am incredibly talented with Bisquick.”

“It’s like you know exactly what I’m looking for in a man,” Bull rumbled, the sound vibrating against Dorian’s lips.

Grinning, Dorian pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the bathroom, going slowly enough to allow Bull time to enjoy the view. He brushed his teeth and hair, and pulled on a shirt. By the time he got to the kitchen, Bull had poured the coffee and was sitting with his, clearly letting the smell wake him up.

Dorian quickly gathered and whisked together the basic mix, before adding vanilla, and mashing in a banana. He flipped on the stove’s built-in griddle, gave it a few minutes to heat, and began spooning out the batter. 

Quietly, Bull said, “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a morning person.”

“Oh, I’m most definitely not. Some mornings are worth pretending for, though, don’t you think?”

Bull laughed. “I see. We’re pretending.”

“Well, I am. You seem like the exact kind of asshole who would be a morning person.”

“True, I am that kind of asshole.”

Dorian pulled maple syrup from the baking cabinet, got out two plates and forks. Watching him, Bull asked, “I didn’t mess up your mugs, right?”

“Nah, I don’t put anything meat-based in my mugs, so it’s relatively hard to fuck them up.” He plated up the first couple of pancakes and gave them to Bull. 

Bull cut into them. “Maybe it’s a dumb question, but do you ever mess it up yourself?”

“Not really. Occasionally, I’ll forget it’s Pesach in the middle of that week and accidentally grab one of the hametz dishes, but even that’s pretty rare. I’ve been doing this since I could set a table. I realize, rationally, that it seems complicated from the outside. To me, though,” Dorian shrugged. “It’s just what I’ve always done.”

“Is that why you do it? Because you’ve always done it?”

Dorian plated more pancakes. “Hardly. I stopped doing a bunch of things when I left home. I jettisoned most shomer practices the second I was out the door, and all of them by the time I’d graduated from college. The whole point of Judaism is to push back at it, to define it in terms that works for you. The community I grew up in would disagree, but the one I’m in now supports me and everyone else I know in figuring out who we are in relation to belief and practice. So, no, I do it because I quit for a year and it didn’t feel like freedom or like taking something back for myself, it felt like betraying a part of me.”

“Okay.”

Dorian turned off the stove. “Okay?”

“For now. I want to know more. Because I want to know you, and this is clearly a significant part of you. But it’s not even eight in the morning, and these are really good pancakes, and so yeah, for now, okay.”

Dorian poked at that, even as he chewed on his own pancakes. He was used to partners—prospective and actual—at best ignoring his practices, at worst, taking issue with them, or making his Judaism about Middle-Eastern politics. He took a slow breath. “Yeah, okay.”

* * *

Once they were dressed, Bull said, “I’m gonna have to insist on you opening the present before we leave.”

“Oh, you’re going to insist, are you?”

“Insistently.” Bull smiled with all his teeth.

Dorian rolled his eyes. He also went over and picked up the box, carefully removing the length of ribbon, and neatly slicing the paper at its folding points. 

“I should have known you’d be one of those.”

“Shut it, my present, my choice.” Dorian continued meticulously unfolding the paper. Inside was a department store box, which took Dorian a bit aback, because who even went to actual department stores anymore? He lifted the top and said, “Oh. That’s. That’s beautiful.”

“You get cold easily. In Chicago. Also, it matches your eyes.” Bull took the cashmere-blend, black-and-gold houndstooth patterned scarf and wrapped it around Dorian’s neck. “Yeah. Looks even better than I thought it would.”

“I—you wear outfits with stripes going in different directions. I’ve _seen_ it.”

“This is different. This is me liking pretty things.”

Dorian blinked. “Oh.”

Bull smiled, leaned down, and kissed him. “Happy Hanukah, Dorian.”

Dorian knew his expression was soft and open and _stupid_ and he couldn’t have changed it for all the money in the world just then. “It really has been.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback (but in no way expects or feels entitled to it!!) including:
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